Friday - March 22, 2013

Little Big Gun Joins The Fray?

Colt Firearms has been in Hartford Connecticut since the very beginning. These days Colt sells almost all it’s production to the government. Anti-gun hysteria in their state is making them yearn for some Red State local. Colt is one of the smallest of the Big Name gun brands, but their joining the Screw This We’re Moving movement is pretty ground shaking. If Colt goes, Remington (over in Ilion NY) might just follow. All the big firearms companies started out in the northeast. They pretty much were the Industrial Revolution at first. Many of the companies have been in place for well over 100 years.

Colt’s Manufacturing, the company that has made the iconic gun dubbed “The Peacemaker” for more than a century, could pull up its Connecticut stakes after coming under fire in the national debate over the Second Amendment.

President and CEO Dennis Veilleux said the pro-gun control climate that has taken hold in the wake of the Sandy Hook school massacre and other firearm attacks has left him feeling unwelcome in the state his company has called home for 175 years. Proposed laws being debated by the Legislature and pushed by Gov. Dannel Malloy include a new gun offender registry, an expanded assault weapons ban, ammunition restrictions and a ban on bulk purchases of handguns. Veilleux said those measures have put Colt and its nearly 700 employees in the crosshairs.

“At some point, if you can’t sell your products … then you can’t run your business,” Veilleux told FoxNews.com. “You need customers to buy your products to stay in business.”

Veilleux, who wrote an op-ed that appeared in The Hartford Courant this week in which he raised the prospect of leaving the state, said the company doesn’t have any such “definite plans.” But if Malloy follows through on his promise to ban the purchase and sale of AR-15 rifles, the centerpiece of the company’s business, he said leaving could become an option.

Veilleux, 47, said Colt is “constantly approached” by other states to relocate. Several red state governors have made no secret of the fact they covet firearms makers, an industry that by some measures contributes $1.7 billion annually to Connecticut’s economy.

While dozens of small firearms and related companies have come out saying that they will no longer sell their products to a government that they feel is repressive, only one other firearms maker has threatened to move ( Baretta ). One accessory company, Magpul, is actually in the process of moving.

Among other products, Colt makes the M16/AR15/M4 rifle, primarily for sales to the government. The company has a long history of bending to government pressure, which lead to civilian boycotts in the mid 90s, which in turn lead to Colt splitting the company into a civilian market division and Colt Defense, a government market division. Colt Defense is by far the larger of the two.

Posted by Drew458     on 03/22/2013 at 08:17 AM   
Filed Under: • Guns and Gun Control •  
• Comments (3) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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